This book, suitable for both course work and self-study, brings together for the first time, in an informal, tutorial fashion, the computer techniques, mathematical tools, and research results that will enable both students and practitioners to apply genetic algorithms to problems in many fields: programmers, scientists, engineers, mathematicians, statisticians and management scientists will all find interesting possibilities here. Major concepts are illustrated with running examples, and major algorithms are illustrated by Pascal computer programs. Chapter concludes with exercises and computer assignments. No prior knowledge of Gas or genetics is assumed.

Rapid advances in the physical and biological sciences and in related technologies have brought about equally farreaching changes in mathematical research. Focusing on control theory, invariant imbedding, dynamic programming, and quasilinearization, Mr. Bellman explores with ease and clarity the mathematical research problems arising from scientific questions in engineering, physics, biology, and medicine. Special attention is paid in these essays to the use of the digital computer in obtaining the numerical solution of numerical problems, its influence in the formulation of new and old scientific problems in new terms, and to some of the effects of the computer revolution on educational and social systems. The new opportunities for mathematical research presage, Bellman concludes, a renaissance of mathematics in human affairs by involving it closely in the problems of society.

The discipline of nonlinear dynamics has developed explosively in all areas of physics over the last two decades. This comprehensive primer summarizes the main developments in the mathematical theory of dynamical systems, chaos, pattern formation and complexity. An introduction to mathematical concepts and techniques is given in the first part of the book, before being applied to stellar, interstellar, galactic and large scale complex phenomena in the Universe. Oded Regev demonstrates the possible application of ideas including strange attractors, Poincaré sections, fractals, bifurcations, and complex spatial patterns, to specific astrophysical problems.